Although automation is making headlines, it’s often still widely misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, automation is not intended to eliminate jobs or replace human-to-human interaction altogether. In fact, according to one corporate survey, 78% of people reported that automation allows them to spend more time on the interesting and rewarding aspects of their job (rather than the tedious or monotonous).
To make automation a little more fun and a little less intimidating, we’ve personified a few of the bots that live and work in our global mobile application. Today, we’d like to introduce them and tell you a bit more about their roles here at Tangoe.
But, before we let our bots take centerstage, we want to clear up some common terminology and technicalities associated with automation.
Automation Acronyms You Should Know
There are lots of processes (and even more acronyms) behind the technology driving our automated workflows, so here’s a quick rundown of what they all mean.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): The overarching term for a machine’s ability to demonstrate human-like intelligence.
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): When we talk about bots, we’re usually talking about RPA, which is a technological approach to mimicking what a person can do when they’re interacting with a system.
- Machine Learning (ML): Refers to algorithms and machines that learn and adapt through experience without being explicitly programmed.
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Technology that allows a computer to interact with and understand a human over the phone.
The bots you’ll meet in this blog represent a mere fraction of all the automation capabilities performed here at Tangoe. There are hundreds of bots working behind the scenes in Tangoe’s mobile ecosystem to streamline core functions (think of it like a family or classification).
It’s also important to note that these bots are designed to enhance our customers’ experience in the platform and compliment (not replace) the white-glove service delivered by our Service Delivery Team. The efficiency of our bots and the personal touch provided by our Service Delivery Leaders work in sync to deliver high-quality, customer-centric results.
Let’s Meet the Bots
Mikey – Mikey’s job involves venturing out to different carrier portals to collect invoice and billing information. Since every carrier requires a different path and has a unique set of circumstances when it comes to invoice retrieval, he’s been programmed to query these portals in a way that won’t trigger any denial-of-service attacks or interruptions (Tangoe even holds a patent for this ML technology).
Johnny- Johnny was built after Mikey’s conception to perform specific activities within the mobile user interface to eliminate repetitive, time-consuming tasks. He can handle things like suspending and unsuspending phone lines, changing carrier plans, and managing upgrades.
Audrey- Audrey is our virtual assistant chatbot, which means she has real-time conversations with our customers! She recognizes messages, translates that text into an intent that she understands, and responds accordingly to fulfill the request. She can communicate with customers via both text messages and phone calls (here’s where IVR comes into play), and she’s able to quickly determine whether she or Johnny can handle the inquiry, or if she’ll need to pass it off to one of her human colleagues to complete.
Rosie- Rosie, our optimization bot, was designed to help save our customers money. She examines waves of data to find discrepancies in carrier rates versus contract stipulations, and searches for any inactive phone lines that have gone undetected. After obtaining and analyzing that data, she spits out cost-saving recommendations to our customers.
Otto- As our communication parser, Otto’s role is quite simple. He’s tasked with surveying emails, pulling out pertinent information, and providing updates and alerts to allow for the completed cycle of a procurement activity.